All, I am happy to report that my luck has changed for the better.
Yesterday (Saturday), I had an interview with a manager of a tech consulting company which I find kinda strange; however, I was told that the company has contracts with other companies that they work mostly on weekends to upgrade the system infrastructure. So I went. At the interview the manager told me that they are a consulting company which requires the employees to have a broad knowledge with both networking skills, database and programming background. Instead of throwing technical questions at me, the manager asks me to show him the skill so that I can convince him that I am the right person for the job. He also told me that he interviewed five other CCIEs ealier during the week and he wasn't impressed will all of them because they don't have the database and programming skills. Well, I told the manager that besides what I am doing at my current job (which I told him that I will be layoff from the job due to the downsizing of the company) as a network engineer, I also know Oracle. Furthermore, I also have a lab at home which includes a few "franken" pix firewalls that I build to prepare for my CCIE Security lab that function just like a Pix525 that I built with "cheap" hardware. I also told him that I have experiences with setting and configuring TACACS and RADIUS using Cisco Freeware TACACS and FreeRadius and that my experience with Pix firewall is rock solid. The TACACS and RADIUS logging is imported to an Oracle9i database for auditing purposes. Last but not least, I also told him that I have experience with Wireless LAN using Extensible Authentication Protocol with Transport Layer Security (EAP-TLS) using FreeRadius and Public Key Infracstructure and Smart Certificate. To make the wirless network to be extremely secure, I implement IPSec over EAP-TLS. I gave him a demonstration by logging back to my home network and show him my skill. The manager was very impressed with my skills especially with the wireless, TACACS and RADIUS that he offers me a job on the spot. He is even more impressed that I learn these skills on Unix/Linux platforms which the cost of the software is essentially free and that since I have the programming skill, I know how to customize the source code. Needless to say, I get the job with a pay of $100k/year. My responsibility at the new company is to train other employees what I know about Pix Firewalls, Wireless security (EAP-TLS, LEAP, PEAP), building TACACS and free RADIUS on Solaris, BSD and linux platform, perl programming and Oracle9i and MySQL database. Two of the people whom I will train are CCIEs. Now, I can really concentrate on my R&S lab in Dec and Security in Jan. I would like to thank eveyone in this group for encouraging me with your wisdom in the past few days. Hopefully, I will pass the lab in my first try. Adrian --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=58013&t=58013 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
